Outlook 2007 opens successfully when using the Administrator user. However, when logged on as a different user the program appears to start loading normally with the opening screen but then ceases with the following message: “Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window”. Clicking the OK button closes the message and the net result is that Outlook does not open. The computer is running Windows Vista.

Before going into a discussion about ways to fix the problem we should establish the end result that you wish to achieve. If you would like to open Outlook under different Windows user accounts and access your Outlook email through each of those different accounts, then this will not be possible. Each user on a Windows computer has their own “profile”. Without going into too much detail, essentially a profile is a folder on the computer which contains that user’s personal data (such as My Documents, Favourites, My Pictures, etc.). In Windows XP you can see each user’s profile folder at C:\Documents and Settings. In Windows Vista the location of the profile folders have moved and can be found at C:\Users. This makes quite a bit of sense, as it allows the data for different users to be separated and kept in distinct locations. From an organisational point of view this is quite advantageous, and it also has security advantages whereby the folders for particular users can be secured so that they are only accessible by that user (or an administrator).

Some applications also store their settings information in the user profile folders, which allows different users to have different settings for a single installation of a piece of software. In the case of Outlook, the data files for each user are stored in the user profile folder for that user. This means that to access the email (and all other Outlook data, such as calendaring) for a user you need to be logged into the computer as that user – you will not be able to access the user’s data from a different account on the computer. In your situation it is likely that you setup your email account in Outlook under the Administrator account and now all of the relevant Outlook data is stored in the Administrator accounts user profile folder. Therefore, you will need to always use the Administrator account to access your email. I imagine that the most common reason you may wish to access the email using a different account is because you don’t like the name (Administrator) of the account in which your email is currently stored. You should be able to change the name of the account easily by going to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel” and open the “User Accounts” control panel then click “Change your account name”.

The previous discussion outlined why you are unable to access your email from other accounts on the same computer. While this may seem like an inconvenience, the benefits of this approach in terms of being able to have multiple users with separate email configurations on the same computer far outweighs the potential downsides. However, we also need to deal with the situation where you are attempting to setup Outlook in a different user account on the computer and are encountering the message resulting in you being unable to setup the account. For example, if you are setting up a different user account on the computer and the person wishes to have their own email account setup in Outlook then the message being displayed will prevent you from accessing Outlook and setting up that email account.

In the first instance Microsoft has issued a Knowledge Base article indicating that the problem could be due to a corrupt settings file that stores the configuration for the Navigation Pane within Outlook. Microsoft has provided an automated “Fix it for me” solution on their website which can resolve the problem, should this be the root cause of the issue. Visit support.microsoft.com/kb/2022778 and follow the instructions to run the fix to check whether this resolves the problem for your situation. Should you find that the problem continues there is another method we can try to reset the Navigation Pane in Outlook. Press the Windows Key + R which will open the Run command box. Type the following command (without the quotes): “outlook.exe /resetnavpane”. This will open Outlook together with clearing and resetting the Navigation Pane for the current user profile. Should this work correctly then on subsequent occasions try opening Outlook normally through the Outlook shortcut and this should now work, since the Navigation Pane has been reset.

Even though the above procedures are the most common cause of the problem it is still possible that these do not resolve the issue. The next most likely cause of the problem is an Outlook add-in or extension which is conflicting with the installation of Outlook. Why this problem would occur only for particular users of the computer and not others is unknown, since logic would dictate that the add-in would cause the same problem under the Administrator user as well, but we should nevertheless investigate this possibility. Press the Windows Key + R again to open the Run command box. Type the following command (without the quotes): “outlook.exe /noextensions”. This will run Outlook without any extensions and will provide an indication as to whether an add-in or extension is the problem. Should Outlook run without any problems then we need to determine which add-in/extension is causing Outlook to error on startup. With Outlook open (in no extensions mode), go to the “Tools” menu > “Trust Center”. In the Trust Center window that appears, select the “Add-ins” tab and this will display all add-ins in Outlook. At the bottom of the window select the type of add-ins that you would like to manage (you can see the type of each add-in in the “Type” column within the add-ins listing) and then click the “Go” button. Within the next window you can then tick and untick the add-ins. I suggest that you note down the add-ins which are currently enabled, before doing any disabling, so that they can be re-enabled later if necessary. Once you have noted these down, disable all of the add-ins and then repeat this procedure for the other types of add-ins. Once all add-ins are disabled restart Outlook and check whether the problem persists.

If the problem stops and Outlook opens correctly in normal mode (i.e. using the normal Outlook shortcut) then it seems that an add-in was causing the problem. At this point it will be a process of elimination to determine which add-in or extension is causing the problem. I suggest that you gradually re-enable the add-ins and extensions one-at-a-time, restarting Outlook and checking whether the problem occurs. When the problem reoccurs you know the most recently enabled add-in is causing the problem. For the moment you can leave that add-in disabled, so that you can at least use Outlook, although you may wish to do some additional research into the add-in causing the problem since it could be a known issue with a resolution. A good place to start is by searching for the add-in name using Google or another search engine.

However, should the problem continue after disabling all add-ins then obviously this is not the cause of the problem. In this situation you should start Outlook in /noextensions mode and then re-enable all of the disabled add-ins so that Outlook is restored to the original configuration again. Then please contact me again for further advice as we will need to investigate the issue further.